|
 The
city government plans to demolish shuttered Jacob Riis Elementary School as part
of rebuilding of the ABLA Homes project, despite the school building's excellent
physical condition. The Chicago Public Schools closed Riis in 2001. Riis School
is a sturdy and remarkable example of early Chicago Public Schools architecture,
which diverges dramatically from St. Louis' early Ittner and Milligan style.
Riis is rather boxy and strictly symmetrical, but is nonetheless a striking
visual anchor in the Taylor Street area.
Why is Riis being demolished? To make way for a wholesale condo-and-apartment
development that will replace the ABLA Homes, one of Chicago's oldest public
housing projects. The projected rise in enrollment from the surrounding
neighborhoods -- which will experience population boosts from the ABLA
development project -- will necessitate opening a new school in the area.
That is, if the new development allows families to come back to the area.
Perhaps an influx of childless Loop office workers will permanently displace the
working class families of Taylor Street. After all, the nearby University of
Illinois at Chicago has already decimated the historic African-American Maxwell
Street area for a similar bland world of one-brick-thick boxes.
Maxwell and Taylor Streets once were the scene of economic diversity and use
diversity. People can still see some of that world remaining on Taylor, where
add-on storefronts abut row houses next door to apartment buildings and the
public library. This mixed-use area is vital and active, but for how much longer
will depend on the whims of the city development agencies as they import the
suburban single-use zones under the guise of New Urbanist styles.
Source:
Ecology of Absence
Ecology of
Absence
|
